The Grille

The Grille is a somewhat incognito place to eat. First, there is a huge pole sign meant to be visible from the Interstate highway that advertises a different restaurant, which I assume is the former owner's place. The front patio area in front of the building is still in disrepair, also, along with a huge pile of junk back behind the building. This is pretty much exactly how it looked when I visited back in the summer, over 6 months ago. I had thought at the time that they were undergoing construction, but apparently that's just the way it's going to be for a while.

However, the interior of the restaurant is cheerful and tastefully decorated. If you can get past some of the exterior faults, you won't be disappointed once you come inside. The atmosphere was nice and quiet. The decor inside was in good shape but the seat of the booth that I sat on, while it appeared structurally sound before I sat on it, had one side where basically it was a pit with no support underneath. So I sat in the middle where there were at least some springs or other support.

The corned beef that they use for their sandwich wasn't in slices, but it was chipped or shredded or whatever you want to call it--the kind I used to call "pre-chewed." Fortunately, despite the chunky texture, the corned beef tasted reasonably good. The server asked whether I wanted Thousand Island dressing--which of course I did! And it was in a cup on the side.

One of the problems with this "pre-chewed" corned beef is that the beef layer is composed of a lot of little chunks of beef that don't really adhere to each other, and they kept falling out of my sandwich. So I ended up using my spoon to continually scoop up escaping beef and sauerkraut and reinserting it into my sandwich. I took the opportunity to also spoon up some the Thousand Island dressing and inject it into my sandwich while I was reinserting the beef. It was quite a process, but it achieved the desired results.

The rye bread was on the thin side, but it was grilled very nicely and also had a good flavor. The sauerkraut and Swiss in the sandwich worked well together, with when combined with the corned beef it gave the sandwich a nice, rich flavor. I really do wish that people creating menus actually knew how to spell. I'm used to seeing "Rueben" sandwiches like the one here at The Grille, but the fact that they advertised it as containing "Saur Kraut" kind of make me wonder whether they had pickled some sort of dinosaur for one of the ingredients.

Overall, it's not the kind of Reuben where you call all of your friends together because they just have to taste it. However, it was a nice solid, average Reuben that I would probably be happy to order if I came back. I feel like their burgers and other items may be more of their specialty. When I visited 6 months ago, I had the House Burger and my wife had the Wisconsin Burger which were both very delicious, so I may head back to those if I'm passing through again.

One thing that is for sure is that I would definitely get the onion rings again. They were just the way I like them.